Dallas Times Herald
Feb. 22, 1990 (A13)
Ex-member details plan by skinheads
Poison gas part of plot for synagogue, he says
By Alan Van Zeifden, of the Times Herald Staff
Members of a white supremacist group known as skinheads
embarked on a three-month reign of terror that included plans
to inject poisonous gas into a North Dallas synagogue's
air-conditioning ducts, a former member testified Wednesday.
Gordon Buchanan, 18, testifying against five skinheads accused
of civil rights violations, said one member talked of
poisoning Temple Shalom with cyanide. The alleged plot wasn't
executed, but testimony showed skinheads had visited the
temple and tampered with the air-conditioning control box.
"He talked about Jews probably more than anybody," Buchanan
said of Confererate Hammerskins member Daniel Alvis Wood. "He
said, 'Kill them all and let God sort them out,' What he
[wanted] to do was put gas in the air-conditioning systems."
On trial are Wood, 20, of Dallas; Sean Christian Tarrant, 20,
of Dallas; Jon Lance Jordan, 19, of Garland; Michael Lewis
Lawrence, 22, of Tulsa, Okla.; and Christopher Barry Greer,
25, of Irving.
All are charged in connection with attacks on minorities in a
Dallas park. All but Tarrant are charged in the temple
vandalism.
Buchanan, a 10th-grade dropout who testified he turned to punk
rock and racist groups for companionship in 1987, said he
joined the Dallas Hammerskins in May 1988, when he was 17.
Buchanan testified Wood told him about three months later that
he wanted to kill Jewish people.
Buchanan said he, Jordan, Wood, Tarrant and another skinhead
who's not on trial visited the temple late one August night in
1988 to check out the facility. Jordan and Wood tampered with
the temple's air-conditioning control box before the group
left, Buchanan testified.
The skinheads had visited the temple on at least one other
occasion, during which they spray-painted anti-Semitic
messages on walls and shot out several windows, according to
testimony.
Buchanan testified on condtion that he only face juvenile
charges for his actions. He has already plead guilty to those
charges.
Buchanan also linked the defendants to the beating of blacks
and Hispanics at Robert E. Lee Park near downtown Dallas in
the summer of 1988.
Alexis Newton, a black Dallas man, testified that a gang of
about a dozen skinheads chased him from the park near Turtle
Creek Boulevard and Hall Street on one occasion that summer.
Fear appeared to be the crux of the argument presented by
prosecutors.
"Terror. It's just a word until it's been experienced,"
Suzanne Drouet, an attorney with the U.S. Justice Department,
said.
Leon Carter, one of three attorneys representing Jordon,
criticized prosecutors during his opening statement for
focusing on the defendants' beliefs rather than on their
alleged crimes.
"Just like I have the right to believe in civil rights, just
like I have the right to believe in affirmative action, they
have the right to disbelieve in civil rights, they have the
right to disbelieve affirmative action," said Carter, who is
black.
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